“During the patriarch’s visit he (a Caritas official from Curuzu) watched the translation from Asuncion. He was deeply touched by our primate’s words and the fact that he visited a small provincial town Asuncion and serve in a small church and said a wonderful sermon,” Metropolitan Ignaty of Argentina and South America said on air the Soyuz TV channel.
“He started studying Orthodoxy and eventually together with his staff, there are about twenty people, decided to convert into the Orthodox faith,” the hierarch said.
According to the metropolitan, his name is Ernesto, now he is taking a distant course in a seminary and is going to become a priest. Besides, together with his companions they built a small church.
The metropolitan also told about a Catholic monastery in Brazilian Santa Rosa, where they venerate Orthodox icons and even learnt to make them in the Russian style.
He points out to a great interest to Russian culture in South America. Many people learn Russian, there are clubs dedicated to Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, Russian movies based on classical literature are very popular, an emigrant from Russia chairs the faculty of the Russian Literature in Sao Paulo University where she managed to attract a collective of the best translators who translate Russian classics into the Portugal language.
